this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war
we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment
we have no sympathy for the devil
image and poem below the fold
Iraqis react following a U.S. military raid in the troubled town of Ramadi, 115 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2006. U.S. troops said they killed four suspected insurgents and detained 48 others during a raid on Tuesday afternoon in Ramadi.
(AP Photo)
Bush opens way for new strategy in Iraq war
WASHINGTON — “Stay the course” has run its course.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said Wednesday that the Baker-Hamilton commission’s recommendations could give the White House “the necessary political room to make a radical change” in Iraq policy. “But the question remains, what will a bipartisan consensus end up being?”
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Confident Demos set sights on presidency
Gubernatorial wins seen as possible path to Oval Office
Jubilant Democrats saw their victories in Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections as a pathway to the presidency in 2008.
“It’s extremely significant, the winning of these governors’ races, for winning in ’08, for congressional redistricting, for shifting the power of policy from the federal government to the states,” said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat who won a second term and is himself exploring a White House run.
Associated Press
Rumsfeld Resignation Wins Praise From Democrats
“If the vote of last night from all over America didn’t accomplish anything but this, it was a good night. But we accomplished far more than this. I recognize that the country is going to be well-served by a new secretary of defense. I look forward to working with that person,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who may be the next majority leader if Democrats win the undecided Virginia election.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she and Reid have long believed that Rumsfeld’s departure would give a “fresh start” to the United States’ approach to the Iraq war. Pelosi is poised to become the first woman speaker of the House.
FOX “news”
U.S. won’t quit Iraq just yet
Does the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as U.S. Secretary of Defense, who led the war in Iraq, signal an immediate beginning of the American army’s withdrawal from Iraq? The answer is no.
It is more reasonable that following its loss in Congress and a call by many voters for a change in military policy in Iraq, the Republican Party will now focus on an effort to save the White House for U.S. President George W. Bush’s political heir.
Haaretz.com
War room bombshell saves W
WASHINGTON – George W. Bush may be stubborn. He’s not stupid.
Jettisoning Rumsfeld was Bush’s idea, not Rummy’s. In fact, Rumsfeld has been on borrowed time for well over a year. In moments of quiet candor, Bush has vented to family members and other confidants that much of the advice he got from Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney about how Iraq would play out after the successful 2003 invasion was wrong.
New York Daily News
Bush’s Party Is Now Over; Does He Know It?
(at his November 8, 2006 press conference) He let stand his most vicious attacks — that a victory by the “cut-and-run Democrats” means the “terrorists win and America loses.”
Bloomberg
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a personal note: I looked around for a poem or song lyric, but didn’t find anything that fit or felt right. Then I thought I’d put together a bunch of newspaper headlines in a sort of haiku-like assembly, but that felt too contrived.
This is the final result – a quick and semi-random collage of some material I found via Google News.
It’s a more literal text than is usually featured in these diaries, in the sense that it’s less abstract, but maybe that’s just how it goes sometimes.
I couldn’t end, though, without hearing the familiar voice that often hunches over my left shoulder and hisses in my ear whenever I sit at a keyboard and contemplate chaos and the role of journalism.
– – –
Interviewer: Have you ever been over there (Iraq)?
Hunter S. Thompson: I don’t think so. Not in any way that I was impressed by. I probably have gone through it or stopped there. I don’t really know Iraq.
I made a point of getting to know it a lot better. It was a very advanced, progressive country, had, what, 90% literacy, health care for the whole entire population. They were doing well, prosperous, high literacy. Many more book stores per capita in Iraq than there are in this country. Many.
No more. We bombed their children. We killed their husbands and wives and we bombed them, and we saw her, and we’re going to do it again. Just random killing like that, mass killing to force a population to get rid of Saddam so we can move in and take over and control the oil,
God damn it, if that’s not evil, I don’t know what would be.
You know, Bush, he’s really the evil one in here. Well, more than just him. We’re the Nazis in this game, and I don’t like it. I’m embarrassed and I’m pissed off. Yeah.
I mean to say something and I think a lot of people in this country agree with me. A lot more never say anything.
We’ll see what happens to me if I get my head cut off in the next week by — it’s always unknown Bush [inaudible] strangers who commit suicide right afterward. No witnesses.
from Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) on the Iraq War & the Bush Presidency
at Democracy Now
and just one more…
While in a perfect world, discussions regarding America’s changing attitudes towards the rule of law and human rights might rightly follow, instead teeth are bared at Thompson and anyone else whose message is disliked.
And while the musings of zealots on an Internet message board might not amount to a hill of beans in this world, the fact that similar diversionary tactics are used on talk radio, TV and in Op-ed pages everywhere is problematic. Before the war, you most undoubtedly recall, discussion and debate were squelched through attacking people’s patriotism, a mode that’s become less popular now that many of the Bush administration’s deceptions have been unearthed. Nevertheless, the national dialogue is as sickly as ever…
from Hunter S. Thompson, George W. Bush and the Free Republic
by Maureen Farrell at BuzzFlash.com
